


lovesongs we will not forget

by astrogeny



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Bad Roleplay, F/F, Family Fluff, Lord!Azura AU, bad euphemisms, future past timeline, sacrifice ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-11 22:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7910578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrogeny/pseuds/astrogeny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of 500-word fills for fe femslash week.</p><p>latest: day 7, free-for-all | felicia/azura, lord!azura au | For one dizzy, improprietous moment, she even considers reaching over, letting her always-cold knuckles brush against the skin over Azura's collarbone, righting the garment for her.  It's what a good maid would do without second thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. tonight, you're no more than a mirage

**Author's Note:**

> a kagerou/orochi fill for day one of @fefemslashweek, “armor”--i went for the loose interpretation of ~emotional armor~, haha. i’d call this r-15, in that there are allusions to Spicie content, but nothing explicit. i really wanted to do s/t for this week, no matter how small, so i’m trying to have all my fills hit exactly 500 words. maybe framing it as a writing challenge instead of an excuse for my lack of time will make me look cooler www

Kagerou has to force herself to make noise when they're in bed together.  She wills Orochi's litany of cries to fill up enough silence for the both of them, loud and shameless and so quick to slip through their thin walls, though subtlety is her instinct.  Or perhaps not--instinct can be taught, or at the very least tucked so deep beneath a child's skin that there's no pulling it out, no matter how deeply you cut or how fervently you worry at the wound.  She makes other concessions, where she can, and Orochi accepts them, more often than not.

There is an artfulness to the way Kagerou's hands are bound above her head, crossed at the wrist with a cheeky bow to finish the knot.  It's something of a performance, where Kagerou pretends she cannot unbind herself, though Orochi's ties are not so easy to escape.  They hold this tender, tenuous illusion in implicit agreement.

Orochi stills, brushes away a splay of fine hairs clinging to Kagerou's jawline.

"You're making the most ridiculous face," Orochi tells her.  Kagerou's countenance smooths into bland imperceptibility almost automatically--almost, until she overrides herself with a smile for Orochi.

"You seem to be of the opinion that I always make ridiculous faces when we do this," she points out.  Orochi clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes.

"Yes, but there's a world of difference between a pleasant funny face and the one you're making right now.  I'm sure I look just as silly, in the thick of it--you're scowling like someone's waving something foul-smelling right beneath your nose!  Come now," and here she slaps Kagerou's thigh playfully, "This isn't an interrogation.  Believe me, if I'd wanted to torture you, I wouldn't have trimmed my fingernails this morning."  The corners of her eyes crinkle up in delight at her own naughty joke, which she's doubtless been hunting for an excuse to use.

"And you torture all your prisoners like this, do you?"  Kagerou retorts softly, though there is the slightest teasing lilt to her voice.  Orochi's smile thins on her full lips, so slightly that it could be nothing more than a trick of the haze in Kagerou's eyes.

"I've dirtied my hands as well."  A finger trails down Kagerou's stomach now; her nails are indeed short crescents that have a polished gleam in the low light.  Kagerou tries to imagine Orochi's deft, playful hands inflicting pain on someone, wonders if she locks her vivaciousness away to do ugly little things in the shadows for the queen whose death left her crying for days.  She lets Orochi keep her secrets.

"This is horrible, morbid ninja sex talk," Orochi remarks dryly.  "Let's make this a little jollier, hmm?"  Her fingers slip beneath Kagerou's waistband and do something that elicits a gasp Kagerou does not have to force.  And Orochi says, "Good, that's better," hair falling down and casting a lattice of shadows on Kagerou's face as she leans in close.  "Now give me more."


	2. and with trepidation, face the dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> femrobin/sumia for day two of fe femslash fest, the prompt being "endings". i know everyone and their uncle has probably done s/t pertaining to robin and their spouse on the sacrifice end, but i wanted to see robin actually facing the cessation of her existence. frobin/sumia is Not That Deep, i know, but i think there's a place for being two halves of a greater whole with chrom, and then there's a place for reading trashy novels together and falling in a simple love that's no less valid. esp since it's my personal hc that chrom ending leads to a schism in the future kids that then leads to fef, where the choice for their future is taken from them, i think robin would be more cognizant of that, and choose not to prioritize her life over that future.

"...I can think of no gentle way to tell you: I'm going to die tomorrow."

Sumia does not say anything, does not cry out as her lips part and close in a hopelessly mechanical parody of speech. She looks as though the confines of her body have at once become too tight, like she will burst forth from herself and shatter at a touch.

"Grima," Robin explains, though the one word is hardly an explanation at all. "If I strike it down, we both die."

"Have you told Captain Chrom?" the words stumbling out of Sumia's mouth, and does she worry for anyone but herself because she can't yet process what she's been told? And Robin says,

"Yes." She will not be another Emmeryn to him. He is forewarned, this time, and can begin to adjust himself to the shape of the world without her. Robin owes him that much, the man who made her a friend before he would make her a god. If she owes Chrom the shape of herself, she owes Sumia every minute detail that fills her, every moment that blends together into a dappled assortment of memories she can only recognize as happy.

"Morgan and Cynthia--"

"No," Robin cuts her off. "They would try to stop me, no doubt as absurdly as possible."

"And you don't think I would?" Sumia's eyes narrowing and welling with tears that pool and pool but do not fall, her voice taking on a ragged fierceness.

"I trust that you'll understand more wholly what's at stake," says Robin, still standing there. But no--they know so much better than her, her children she now will never have. She wonders if they knew what ugly pieces of her she'd left them, when they clawed their way back through time to save her. "Perhaps I even should have let Lucina end me long ago." At this, a tiny sob wrenches itself from Sumia.

"Don't, don't say that," she pleads, as if Sumia had not forgiven Chrom's girl her anger, as mistrustful as her father is trusting.

"My life is not worth their future."

Sumia embraces her then, thin arms around Robin's neck, and Robin counts her wife's every shuddering heartbeat. She is exactingly cognizant of all her being, now that it is so suddenly so finite. It feels like something inside her hands is vibrating, like she never really understood that they were part of her living body until just now.

"Can we lay down together?" Sumia asks shakily. Even now, she is still so faithful that if she asks, then Robin will have the right answer. "I'll read to you, whatever you'd like."

This is what she offers, but when they lay down, side by side, the book stays closed under Sumia's hand, under Robin's. They say nothing more, do nothing more, despite the urgent press of awareness that clings like a craving to the walls of Robin's mouth--in hours, she will not exist.

With trepidation, they face the dawn.


	3. words we have yet to understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maribelle/lissa + baby brady and owain for (a very last-minute!) day three fill for fe femslash week and the prompt "family". though today is soleil's birthday, friday is the "sunshine" prompt, and i can never pass up a chance to write mind-numbingly sappy two-mom family content. i guess brady is somewhere between two and three here, while owain is around a year old.

"Do you suppose it's too late in their development to teach them to call me something more sophisticated than 'Ma'?" Maribelle asks. "You know, tell them it was all a little farce, but that it's time now for them to speak like princes should?" Lissa, jogging Owain's chubby little legs around in circles as he lies on his back, vocalizing pure delight, responds,

"Oh, don't be such a fuddy-dud, Maribelle! They're both babies, 'Ma' is just easier for them to say." Maribelle at her desk heaves a world-weary sigh.

"On the contrary, Brady has firmly established himself in the realm of the 'terrible twos', as I'm told they're called," she insists.

Lissa decides not to point out that Brady, sitting tamely on Maribelle's lap as he tries in vain to undo the absurd miniature cravat he's wearing, isn't so terrible. At least, when he's not crying. Then again, he's so often crying, that maybe the point is moot. If it were up to her, poor little Brady wouldn't be parading around in so much poof that he practically waddles, but then again (somewhat ironically), Maribelle is far better-versed in what a royal upbringing should look like than she is. She play-nibbles at Owain's stubby toes, eliciting another gale of laughter. He thumps his arms up and down enthusiastically, babbling a mile a minute in his own obscure baby language. She wonders if Brady can understand his brother, or if he's forgotten baby-speak in favor of his newfound love of proclaiming, "No!" at everything.

Maribelle looks down from her papers and makes a scandalized noise.

"Lissa! Take his feet out from your mouth--who knows where they've been?"

"He's a baby," Lissa replies with a good-natured roll of her eyes, "He can barely even walk! Where are his feet even supposed to go?"

"No!" Brady chimes in, and Lissa takes that as him siding with her on the matter. Abandoning any pretense of work, Maribelle sets her work aside to dandle Brady on her knee.

"Do you suppose he's simply saying that to be contrary?" she asks. The question is probably meant to be rhetorical, but Lissa can't resist.

"Contrary? _Your_  child? You know, there's a saying about apples and trees..."

"Yes, and our sons shall be good apples," Maribelle proclaims, punctuating her statements with doting kisses on Brady's round, flushed cheek. He bears his mother's outburst of highly ignoble affection with surprising patience, without a single tear. Lissa is beginning to suspect that Brady cries out of happiness just as much as he does out of fear, anger, or most any other emotion he has. Not to be ignored, Owain begins to crescendo his babbling, as if he has a host of opinions on the matter. Lissa tickles his tummy, and he's back to laughter.

"Good, respectable apples, who do not call their mama 'Ma' like hooligans," Maribelle insists.

"You're ma," Brady says, like he's just arrived at the most astounding revelation of his tiny life. Maribelle groans in dismay.


	4. genealogy of the mythological fix-it-fic, part 2 (of 12)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soleil/ophelia for day four of fe femslash week, "legend". i couldn't resist the idea of ophelia convincing soleil to do ridiculous larping of her in-universe mythological fix-it fics (soleil has read all 60 chapters of ophelia's micaiah/eirika crossover novel, probably). please note that nothing in this fic reflects my actual opinions on fe4, just that i think the references to older fe games as pop-cultural myths has great humor potential. otoh, things like olivia/donny supports referencing leanne and naesala are a nice little touch, unlike soleil and ophelia larping ophelia's jugdral femslash ships www also, i make no apologies for ophelia's horrible euphemisms, b/c i love horrible euphemisms.

"Wait, go over this scenario for me, one more time?"

Ophelia takes a deep breath.

"Well, I'm Deirdre, the cursed maiden of the Spirit Forest, who caught the eye of Lord Sigurd, and joined his company after he was smitten by her beauty. However," with a dramatic flourish, "Unbeknownst to Sigurd, Deirdre cannot return his love, for her the compass of her heart points her to the enigmatic swordswoman, Ayra--that's you--and so now the two of them are having a midnight rendezvous. Make sense?"

Soleil nods slowly, trying to fix all the dramas and subplots in her mind. She's heard of these myths, but never in the rapt, excited detail with which Ophelia relates them.

"It's kind of sad, though, isn't it?" Soleil remarks. "Do we--I mean, the girls we're pretending to be--do they get to be together in the end?"

"They do in my version, which is the whole reason I've made it up. This saga gives poor Lady Deirdre a rather horrible life, frankly, so I think we could stand for some revisionism. But enough talk," Ophelia says, unlacing the ties at the front of her nightgown to slide it down and expose her bare shoulders. "We're in one of the castles, and I've summoned you to my chambers, unsure if you'll come or not." With that, Ophelia turns her back to gaze forlornly at the (shuttered) window, wrapping one of Soleil's blankets around herself like an improvised shawl. It's the one with rabbits stitched into it, Soleil notes with mild amusement.

"Lady Deirdre?" Soleil asks quietly, feeling a bit silly, calling Ophelia by a different name.

"Put a bit more 'oomph!' into it," Ophelia insists, still facing the window.

"Lady Deirdre!" Soleil cries, going for broke and striking a beseeching pose. "It's me, Ayra--uh, Ayla?"

"Oh, translators will never agree on any of the names. Just use whatever suits you."

"Ayra," continues Soleil, now determined to do this without any more of her own interruptions. "I've come to answer your summons!"

Ophelia whirls around, and Soleil is instantly impressed by how she manages to look so genuinely wanton, so full of tremulous surprise. Cyrkensia's stages are losing their greatest actress to her bedroom, Soleil thinks.

"Oh, Lady Ayra, I wasn't sure if you'd come when I called," declares Ophelia. Somehow, she manages to sound breathless while projecting her voice loud enough for an imagined audience. "I thought you might tire of our dalliances."

"Though our nights together may be sleepless," Soleil says, stepping closer and eliciting a stifled giggle from Ophelia, "I find they never tire me." Ophelia, not missing a beat, gasps,

"Lady Ayra," wrapping her arms tight around Soleil's neck. With a start, Soleil realizes Ophelia isn't wearing a stitch beneath that little nightgown. "Won't you please enter the secret garden of my Spirit Forest and drink of my maiden's ichor?"

She has no idea what that means, but when Ophelia guides her hand up her bared thigh, Soleil follows.


	5. spaces left unfilled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (belated) eirika/l'arachel for day five of fe femslash week, "sunshine". i ended up writing sophelia for day four, and i really wanted to squeeze in some eirika/l'arachel somewhere! i think this is a much, much bigger topic than i can wholly cover in 500 words--i have a big jumble of thoughts wrt the two of them awkwardly navigating a budding relationship in the midst of how much of a downer fe8's ending really is. i really like l'arachel's little moments of frankness, and how well she understands not only eirika, but that she can't insert herself entirely into eirika's old experiences. all they can do is make s/t new together. :') i'm starting to fall behind a bit on these fills, thanks to some unexpected rl circumstances! days 6 and 7 will be coming as a package on day 7, i think.

The day is balmy and serene, an autumn breeze tugging at Renais' razed ground like an insistent, oblivious child at a parent's sleeve. Fado's sepulchre stands empty, and Eirika cannot bring herself to enter it again. This war has erected more empty tombs than it has filled ones, she thinks. And she thinks, too, of another vacant tomb that not even the shell of what Lyon became (what he always was, in his darkest corners?) can ever be interred in.

Beside her, L'Arachel makes a show of a very fake coughing fit, where most would only "ahem" once.

"Such a grim look makes me want to reach for my staves," L'Arachel says in a rush. "Normally, you only look that way when you're injured and insisting you aren't." As is often the case, Eirika is left wondering if L'Arachel stumbles into her roundabout astute statements, or if she merely presents them in an absurd way because she's inclined to do so.

"It would almost be better, more fitting, if I could bring myself to cry. I fear I've wasted all my tears at the wrong times and left nothing for now." The words have the flavor of an apology, cloying as they spill off Eirika's tongue.

"No shame in that!" L'Arachel rallies. "I'm told I bawled quite appallingly at the funeral of my own dear parents."

"I'm told you were an infant at the time of their deaths, so I would expect as much," Eirika returns, a smile ghosting itself across her lips. L'Arachel defers with a little scoff and the wave of a hand, but they both know she's gotten what she came for: a smile from Eirika, a tepid imitation of the winking, dappled sunlight surrounding them.

"I almost wish it had rained today," admits Eirika. "We have a saying, 'Rain falling at a funeral brings the soul rising to heaven.'"

L'Arachel huffs at that, "I should think one's actions in life earn them a place at Saint Latona's side, not whether or not it happens to be raining on any given day."

"Then my father is guaranteed his place," is what Eirika says--what she does not say is that Lyon cannot be in that same place, if either of them are anywhere at all.

"Eirika," L'Arachel starts, hand uncertain on her cheek with the newness of what's bloomed between them at the most inopportune time. "I cannot pretend to share your hurt, but I can shoulder as big a portion of it as you can give me." Eirika wants to be wholly comforted by those words. Having the steadfastness of L'Arachel's faith directed at her is a dizzying experience, to be loved for what she is struggling to become, rather than for what someone else struggles to make of her.

"Perhaps we could go to the gardens instead," Eirika suggests suddenly, her hand over L'Arachel's own. The gardens are trampled and stagnant, but at least they are not empty, at least they can be filled again.


	6. keep it professional

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (belated) lucina/severa for the "secrets" prompt, day six of fe femslash week. this will be a double-feature to wrap things up, with part seven coming shortly! it's been way too long since i last wrote lucisev, and i wanted to try them out in the future past timeline setting. i like writing lucina as tentative, almost overly-eager to please in her relationships, esp w/severa? i don't want to woobify her, but i think she would privately fret a lot that she's Doing It Right and meeting her partner's needs. the difference is that she'll communicate this right away to severa, which in turn prompts severa to be more forthright. they have such a good dynamic. __(:3_/

Severa stands up to dress, and is hit with vertigo from the abrupt movement.

"Have you left something in the oven?" Lucina asks. From anyone else, it would sound like teasing, but Lucina is, as always, in earnest.

"I can't stay too long--it looks sketchy," Severa mumbles, disentangling her underwear from her leggings, cast off together in her earlier haste. This prompts Lucina to sit up in the bed, fixing her with a look of consternation.

"Why now? You've not been in such a rush before. Have I done something to offend? Please, if I wronged you just now, did something unwanted, tell m--"

Severa cuts her off with an "ugh" that sounds juvenile to her own ears from the first syllable. No, that's not the right way to go about it. She's trying to be better at this.

"No," Severa explains, "I just--this would make you look bad, you know? I mean, it'd make me look bad, too, but you're the Exalt, here. 'Captain of the guard caught sneaking out of the Exalt's chambers at gods-awful o'clock'? Not a rumor I want to start."

"Would it put you at ease to make our relationship public?"

Would it? Severa tries to picture herself as Lucina's public lover, then someday as her what?  Her consort? Her wife?

"Wouldn't that be, like, a conflict of interests? I'm supposed to be protecting you, not," with a vague gesture to Lucina's bed, "Not bedding you." Lucina considers this, brow drawn pensively. Then, speaking as though the words are just coming to her mind,

"I should think it a perfect alignment of our interests. As the Exalt, I must protect my people, and so, too, must I protect you, as you've done for me in return. As the Exalt, I love my people, and so, too, do I love you."

At this, Severa arches a brow.

"I certainly hope you don't, uh, 'love' all your people in the same way, unless you're also bedding every smelly farmer or slimy courtier you count amongst your flock." To Severa's surprise, Lucina blushes at this, the expression on her face springing into one of surprise.

"I misspoke, I--I hadn't considered the implications. I meant only that as the Exalt, my reasons to love you are twofold." A mirthful laugh sneaks its way out before Severa can restrain it. Although, on second thought, perhaps it's what Lucina needs to hear. She sits back down on the bed, tunic still open.

"I'm messing with you," she admits. Lucina's abashed little smile makes Severa glad she's seated--it's enough to make her weak at the knees, it always is. She wonders if it's like arrows or wind magic, a new and lasting weakness she's picked up in following wherever Lucina will go.

"I won't ask you to go public if you're uncomfortable," Lucina murmurs. "I only ask that you stay the remainder of the night with me. We will be Exalt and pegasus knight again in the morning."


	7. blue monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the final free-for-all prompt for day seven of fe femslash week! thank you so much to everyone who left kudos/comments on ao3, or liked/reblogged each piece on tumblr! i took a poll on my fe twitter (@shiningbows), and a lot of ppl wanted to see felicia/azura from my vaguely-defined lord!azura fix-it-fic au, so here it is. this is the morning prior to the start of the game, so the only real context is that there's no kamui, but azura is still in hoshido as a glorified hostage, part of nohrian reparations for sumeragi's murder and the short, ugly war that followed. felicia was sent along with her eleven years ago as a maidservant, taken from the rebellious ice tribe b/c garon knew it would hurt kilma more to lose the daughter he favored.

Felicia never has to wake Azura in the mornings. She's thought about it, a prank with a little burst of ice, the way she and Flora used to do. But she touches Azura a lot less these days, and tries not to read too hard into the reasons why. It's not a road she's brave enough to explore yet.

While Felicia sometimes struggles to drag herself into a state that at least looks like awakeness, Azura rises naturally in the blue hours before the warm dawn.

"I enjoy the quiet," she's told Felicia, holding her voice low so that it doesn't press against the confines of their thin walls. They move about their routine, such as it is, in a tiny room that almost seems a world apart from the rest of Hoshido. At least, Felicia thinks, the cool mornings make it much easier to put on her Nohrian maid's outfit, mended and re-mended by Azura's own sure hands as the two of them have grown together. Even cast in Hoshidan fabric, the whole ensemble, with its feathered petticoats and hidden sheathes for daggers, is a sticky chore when the weather turns so humid that Felicia can barely breathe.

"Let me brush your hair," Azura says. Her robe is slipping off her left shoulder, and Felicia debates pointing it out. For one dizzy, improprietous moment, she even considers reaching over, letting her always-cold knuckles brush against the skin over Azura's collarbone, righting the garment for her. It's what a good maid would do without second thought. Granted, Felicia's never considered herself a particularly good maid, but she has been, at least, a good friend, a good bodyguard, a good companion.

The thought passes, if only because she frantically hustles it along.

"But I'll do yours, too, okay?" Felicia offers. It should be the other way around, really. Azura is always her priority, even if she's never anyone else's--that much, they've always had in common.

"A braid today," remarks Azura. Her fingers are so gentle in Felicia's thin hair, working out knots that aren't really there. "I should train with my naginata today--I've neglected it. Princess Hinoka would take me to task if she knew." Princess Hinoka, she calls the woman who's supposed to be her older sister. Then again, if Felicia were somehow to ever go home again (to the Ice Tribe, not to Nohr), would "Lady Flora" trip out from behind her lips, too? She can only guess what Flora looks like now.

"I'll be sure to fetch it for you as soon as the master-at-arms is up and about!"

"You may have to wait until noon, in that case," Azura says, her giggle a melodious chime. She can't freely access her own weapon, given to her by Queen Mikoto herself--but if the Hoshidans don't trust Azura with a weapon, why let Felicia stay by her side? Felicia, who is herself a weapon so that Azura will only ever need to carry one as a formality.


End file.
